Lord of Death
by Shatteredsand
Summary: Shinigami has fallen and Death the Kid must rise. "Our Lord is dead, long live our Lord. Our Lord is dead. Our Lord is Death."


AN: Just something that popped into my head. I don't actually know how but I do know *SPOILER* that Shinigami-sama dies and Kid replaces him. So some slight AU about his death. This is just what I think he might have gone through….

Warnings: SPOILERS?, I don't know how old the characters are so I put them at 16

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.

**Chapter One**

**Cry**

Death the Kid has never cried. He has been panicked and terror-stricken. He has been pained and injured. He has been enraged and sickened. But never once has Death the Kid cried. It just wouldn't be proper, after all, for Death to cry.

On the day Shinigami-sama died, Death did not cry. He knew, instantly. Where he had once felt his father's presence, there was nothing. Where he had once held the power of a Shinigami, he now felt the power of _the _Shinigami.

Death had looked up from his cup of hot chocolate, with eight perfectly symmetrical marshmallows, into the eyes of Liz and Patty and spoke in a clear and emotionless voice.

"Father's carnation has passed." Their eyes widen in realization. Patty fell silent and Liz placed a hand on his shoulder. But he did not cry. Carefully he reached a spoon into his mug of chocolate and pulled a single marshmallow from it. He stared down at the seven cylinders of white in an ocean of brown. His eyes closed slowly and he raised the cup to his lips.

For the first time in over a decade, Kid had no concern for the symmetry of anything.

The next day, Shinigami was buried. Every citizen of Death City came to the wake. Kid sat in the first seat of the first row, directly beside the closed coffin. The coffin already sealed to hide to disfigured face his father. The priest spoke in a quiet, subdued voice. His words were meaningless, meant to bring comfort to those who needed it rather than speak the truth. But then, what do you say at God's funeral? When he had finished they all filed outside. Most left; only family and friends were permitted to watch the actually burial.

Black Star was oddly stoic, Tsubuki's hand in his. Maka cried in Soul's arms, while Spirit placed his hands on their shoulders. Liz and Patty stood on either side of him, faces masks of grief as tears slide down their faces. Chrona looked like she wanted to say something to him, but held her silence. Kid was glad. He couldn't bear the sound of pity words, of compassion, right now. He looked down on his father's grave, identical to all the Gods' who had come before, identical to his own future place of eternal rest. And still he did not cry.

A week later, Death the Kid was coronated Lord of Death. His title changed that day. He is no longer Death the Kid. He is merely Death.

The whispers float through the city, murmured in reverence. "Our Lord is dead; long live our Lord. Our Lord is dead. Our Lord is Death." Death hates these whispers but says nothing.

He stares now, on his first day as Lord, through the cracked mask of his father. It is a magic thing, crafted to create the face the bear desires. He has changed it from his father's kid friendly skull into the fearsome face of retribution. But he keeps the crack splitting the mask from the top left, through the eye, to just past the center. The crack that had formed when Asura had done the impossible and slain God.

His advisors beg him to change its face into something less frightening. Something that does not bear the death wound of the city's previous lord. He glares at them, but says nothing. The mask of the Shinigami _is _Shinigami. No man may bend it to his will. It is the creation of the Gods and Titians and Fates. Their voices fall silent one by one as they realize this fact and Death's unwavering will.

He motions their dismissal silently with his hands. They exit until only Liz and Patty remain. Liz turns the lights off and allows the three of them to be swallowed darkness. Death stands from his throne of bones. In the perfect darkness, he allows the weight of everything to sag his shoulders. His head bows. His hands hang lifelessly at his sides. He raises a hand to his face and pulls the mask off his face. Black hair, stripped with white on the left hangs long and shaggy from the cowl of his cloak, its perfectly symmetrical cut long forgotten. Golden eyes seem to glow in the blackness.

Vengeance's vestige slips through his fingers and clatters to the floor. Death falls to his knees beside it. His right hand presses to his face, fingers lost in hair as black as night, palm digging in his eye. He raises his face to the sky and screams. It is a scream of pain. It is a scream of rage. It is a scream of anguish and agony. It is the scream of Death.

And for the first time, in any incarnation, Death cries. Tears well in his eyes and roll down his cheeks. Great, gasping sobs wrack his body and escape through trembling lips. He falls forward and barely catches himself with his shaking left hand. Liz and patty kneel beside him, but have no words for the grieving boy. He collapses into Liz's lap and clings to her while Patty strokes his head comfortingly.

Hours pass and his eyes run dry. He raises his head and looks at his weapons, his friends, his family. The only two privileged to witness Death's grief. The only ones to see him on his knees under the pressure of loss. He finds he doesn't have the words to thank them for this. This comfort that they didn't have to give.

He takes the mask gently from the floor and rises to his full height. Eyes resolute he replaces the mask on his face, once more becoming retribution. His golden eyes burn through the slits of his mask.

"I'm going to kill him. For everything he did. For what he cost me, what he cost everyone. I'm going to kill him." There is something hard and cold in his voice, an edge that the redefined and orderly Kid never had. In his voice there is no mercy. There is no compassion. There is only pain and rage.

AN: So…what did you think? Good? Bad? I demand reviews. DEMAND them. Or I'll sic my new and more hard-core Death after you. I mean it. Really.


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